Tag: FTTH

Utopia FTTH network looks to turn itself around

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By Sean Buckley

When the Utah Telecommunication Open Infrastructure Agency (UTOPIA) open access Fiber to the Home (FTTH) emerged in 2002, it was heralded as a hero by extending broadband to areas where the incumbents just did not feel they could make a good business case work. But ongoing financial losses and a lower than expected subscriber base, has forced UTOPIA to realign its strategy.

To get its vision off the ground, UTOPIA has asked its 11 member cities to join together to form the Utah Infrastructure Agency, whose goal would be to raise up to $60 million to finish building out its network. Although UTOPIA said in May it required more money to complete the network, this week was the first time it has laid out its new strategy that its member cities still need to approve. In addition, UTOPIA put in a bid to participate in Google’s Fiber Communities program in February.

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Municipal broadband haters in NC dealt a blow

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One state down and 18 to go to allow municipalities to decide their own fate on the best broadband network option for them.  Elimination of these laws is no guarantee that every municipality is going to enter the telecommunications business.  Most of them do not have the expertise for such an endeavor which is why they will turn to private companies to assume that responsibility.  If the incumbents could afford to upgrade the last mile networks in rural communities then there would be no need to consider leveraging the long-term financing of municipalities.  The problem is that investing in rural broadband networks is not something that most public companies can do.  As more and more communities build that last-mile infrastructure, I predict that the incumbents will start purchasing capacity or fibers from them.

By Matthew Lasar

“O joyous day! O rapture!” blogged a community broadband advocate on Monday. “That insidious bill [that] incumbents’ pocket legislator, NC state Senator Hoyle, tried to pass to kill muni broadband networks met its final demise over the weekend.”

Indeed it has. North Carolina Senator David Hoyle’s (D-GA) now-defeated amendment (S-1209) was cosmetically titled “An Act to Ensure That A Local Government That Competes with Private Companies in Providing Communication Services Has The Support Of Its Citizens.” But advocates of city/county backed high speed Internet projects just knew it as the Municipal-Broadband Must Die Die Die bill.

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Americas Report: Google to Build Out Multiple Fibre Cities?

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In our continuing series of previews for the “Connected States of America” documentary, TelecomTV’s Guy Daniels visits the headquarters of Google to learn more about the companys plans to create a Fibre City. In an exclusive interview with Google Chief Technology Advocate, Michael Jones, it now appears that there may be more than one winner — good news to the 11,000 cities that want the prize. Further previews will appear in NewsDesk every week.

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Americas Report: What Broadband Means to Rural USA

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TelecomTV is traveling around the United States to assess the state of broadband deployment in America.  Guy Daniels reports on the use of the Internet and wireless services in the most rural of rural America: Amidon, North Dakota.  Although their use is limited, the Internet has impacted the lives of its residents.   I would be curious to see how the Internet has changed their lives once they start taking advantage of the bandwidth their recently installed fiber will bring.

In the third of our weekly previews for the forthcoming “Connected States of America” documentary, TelecomTV’s Guy Daniels visits Amidon in rural North Dakota, which, with a population of just 20, is the smallest county seat in the whole of the USA. What impact has broadband, the Internet and cellular had in such an isolated part of America? TelecomTV is in the middle of an extensive filming schedule, driving across the US to collect case studies and interviews. Further previews will appear in NewsDesk each week.


Article continued on TelecomTV…

Australia makes fiber official: no more copper wires, ever!

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Telstra realizes that it is better for them to support this effort than try to compete.  If they chose to compete against service providers using the NBN, they would burn capital needlessly and still not achieve the results of their competition.  They would be offering less HD and 3D programming and slower Internet speeds than their competition.  So to participate in NBN, Telstra gives up its ducts and existing mid-mile fiber, and the government will operate its phone services, emergency services, and payphones.  Although I applaud the creation of an open-access fiber infrastructure, I think that the Australian government has encroached too far into private enterprise.  The government is essentially entering the telecommunications business through the creation of USO Co. which takes them back to the days of Telecom Australia when they were the PTT.

Australia’s going all-in with its government-run fiber network. The government has now convinced the country’s dominant telco, Telstra, to sign on with the scheme, get rid of its copper and cable lines, and transition its subscribers to the open-access national fiber program. When the project is complete, Australia will have taken an almost unprecedented step for a country of its size: legacy telecommunications infrastructure will be almost gone.

Although Australia had planned to move forward with its AUS$43 billion fiber network with or without Telstra, Telstra’s decision to join the party is a significant one—the company could have held out and fought to keep its customers from defecting to fiber, setting the stage for a long platform war. In the end, though, there just weren’t many benefits to doing this; a recent report from McKinsey and KPMG reemphasized the fact that the new fiber buildout would “accelerate the evolution of the industry,” and it would be hard to compete with open-access fiber-to-the-home on speed.

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Broadband Issues Echo Electrification Debate of Decades Ago

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The analogy to rural electrification that Adelstein makes is apt because just like electricity, broadband services are vital to the growth of all communities.  The other parallel is that deployment of broadband is a local matter.  Once again this administration is saying the right things but not following up with any action.  The National Broadband Plan has some nice goals, but there is little discussion of implementation.  Subsequent discussions at the FCC revolve around continuing to milk the ability of the copper in the ground.  Yes that will increase rural penetration somewhat cost-effectively at the expense of being behind in bandwidth delivered.  We need to build these networks targeting mid-century needs, not 20th century needs.

Mytheos Holt, Reporter-Researcher, BroadbandBreakfast.com

WASHINGTON, June 15, 2010 – Today’s broadband expansion throughout the United States faces similar challenges to wiring the nation with electricity decades ago, and the nation’s businesses, consumers and government must work together to tap into the resources that high-speed internet access offers.

In the keynote address prior to BroadbandBreakfast.com’s panel on challenges to adoption and availability of rural broadband, Rural Utilities Service Administrator Jonathan Adelstein stressed a number of areas where his agency could improve its broadband outreach, while offering a vision for the future and a historical context for the present debate.

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CFU adds fiber optic links to all customers

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Another community is taking their destiny into their own hands by building their own minicipal broadband network.  Note that they will be building the network out to anchor tenants, like businesses, first followed by homes.  CFU plans on using a PON system to start, but it looks like they are burying enough fiber to switch to active Ethernet down the road.

CEDAR FALLS — Cedar Falls is getting an express lane to the information super highway.

Cedar Falls Utilities is installing to-the-premises fiber optic cable throughout the community. Construction on the three-year, $17 million project which also includes a contract to Salesforce integration service is set to begin this fall.

The fiber optic cable will replace the existing coaxial cable that carries Internet and cable television service. The upgrade will offer maximum Internet speeds hundreds of times faster and give CFU bandwidth for up to 100 more HD television channels on its cable system. On Thursday, the CFU board approved the contracts for the project.

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